My Future LBT Song Projects

action9000 · **on:** June 01, 2006, 01:48:28 AM

Welcome to the first poll on the GoF in a Loooong time!

It recently occurred to me, maybe I'm a little out of touch with the times. MIDIs aren't always especially useful to some people, as the quality is entirely dependant on the person's sound card. I have been using them previously because of their small size and their relative ease of production. Also, there were a few people around who were interested in the sheet music of the LBT songs, and these people could simply load the MIDI into a MIDI editor to view the sheet music.

On the flipside, if my future work is to be done in MP3, the quality would be consistant on every person's computer/player. The files could quickly be burned to a CD or portable MP3 player. There is also Much more freedom of expression using the powerful syntheizers available to me. I would be able to enhance the original songs to very interesting degrees, being on a bright, new listening experience for someone already familiar with the original song. This sort of "remixing" is also possible in MIDI, but there is far less freedom.

For samples of my LBT MP3 work, check out the Karaoke Project forums. The music for both songs was written on my synthesizers which I will be using for future MP3s.

So my question to you is:
Would you be interested in seeing more MIDIs like I've been doing, MIDI attempts at re-writing the songs, altering them from their original and attempting to enhance them? Or either of the above with MP3s?

Is there more demand for LBT MIDIs or LBT MP3s, is what I'm really trying to find out here. Probably in the end, I'll still create a bit of both, but I'm wondering where the public eye (well, ear) sits on this one! B)

I recently got ahold of a very nice web host, with 150 MB of storage space and more bandwidth than I'll Ever use (over 1 TB per month), so I'm able to host a large number of high-quality MP3 files. The host is reasonably fast; I could download files at a maximum speed of about 96 kb/s off of it during my tests. This is what sparked this topic idea.

Anywho, thoughts would be Much appreciated and I look forward to releasing more LBT music to the Gang of Five!

Petrie. · **Reply #1 on:** June 01, 2006, 07:23:52 AM

Theoretically, a midi is nothing more than an instrumental adaptation of songs, and I suppose if people are going to prefer one over the other, they'd go for the mp3 file because like you said, the soundcard they have makes all the difference and you'll get conflicting responses on what could be done to make them better. Also, you can't really listen to midis in the car.

I suppose I'd go for the mp3 because you can do much more in the long run with the file than the midi. I'm not after sheet music so I don't need that benefit of midi.

Malte279 · **Reply #2 on:** June 01, 2006, 09:08:54 AM

I'm afraid that I cannot give a general answer of the kind that is required in this poll. We have heard midis from you which wouldn't be any better as MP3 (in which case there would be no point at all to convert the handy midis into MP3s), while in some cases MP3 format makes a real improvement. You are more competent than anybody else here to decide what format is better in each individual case Tim; therefore I think you should decide it for every individual project rather than deciding for one format to be used ever after.

action9000 · **Reply #3 on:** June 01, 2006, 07:17:56 PM

I guess what I was wondering is, how much demand is there for the accurate sheet music found within MIDI files? If is it not especially in demand, I can easily switch to MP3s. They are much more work to produce understandable sheet music from, but the freedom is amazing, for music quality! B)

I think you're right though, Malte. I'll just use my best judgement for what to do with various LBT music projects, and I"ll release what I see fit. Thank you Adam and Malte for your responses B)